The COVID-19 pandemic in a higher education school community

Introduction: Following the arising of SARS-CoV-2, the school developed several actions to prevent and control the transmission of the virus. Ensuing the General Direction of Health (DGS) guidelines, the Covid-19 Contingency Plan was created in order to monitor the school community epidemiologically. Objectives: Describe the sociodemographic and clinical variables of the individuals that were in prophylactic isolation or quarantine, for Covid-19, determined by the health services; and analyze the incidence of infection and the number of individuals in prophylactic isolation in the school community. Methodology: Descriptive study of epidemiological nature, which population includes all the individuals that notified voluntarily, to the Contingency Plan Team (CPT) their situation. These notifications reported to the prophylactic isolation or quarantine by Covid-19 that occurred in a period of time of 12 months. The data collected was based on the information the individuals shared. The variables were analyzed resorting to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. The ethic aspects of researching with human beings were taken into account. Results: From the 331 people that contacted the EPC, 69,8% were in prophylactic isolation and 30,2% were in quarantine. Mostly were women (84,9%) and almost 90% of the sample were students of the bachelor's degree in Nursing. As to the site of the risk contact, most of them occurred in the community (44,7%), 6% occurred in school and 38,7% at the clinical practice sites. Of these, 48,3% happened in the hospital, showing a higher incidence of positive cases in this context (p <= 0,005). It was shown that these individuals live predominantly in the council of Gondomar (27,7% and 8%), Matosinhos (33,3% and 7%,) and Porto (22,6% and 7%). Conclusion: It was concluded that the site of the risk of contact was predominantly external to the institution. The students in hospital clinical practices were more exposed to the risk of contamination than the ones that had clinical practices in the community. Also, the possibility of higher exposure of the students in presencial lessons, is not excluded, resulting of moving them from the clinical practice sites to the school. It's important to notice the existence of working students, specially from post graduate courses, which are already nurses in practice.